


let me play among the stars

by LesbianLucretia



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Celestial Bodies, Celestial Imagery, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Poetic Language, Space themes, Stars Sun Moon AU, Trauma, Very Specific Au that I Have Been Sitting On For Months
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-10-27 08:34:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20757443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LesbianLucretia/pseuds/LesbianLucretia
Summary: They both don’t bring up the fact that their skin tingles when they touch, or the deep vibration that comes when they meet someone like them, or the way Nureyev melted one of his bracelets in that bathroom when Juno had disregarded his name.





	let me play among the stars

**Author's Note:**

> i have been thinking abt this au for months and im dying im so glad i finally got to write it

When Juno Steel first lays his eyes on Rex Glass, his skin begins to tingle in a way he hasn’t felt since… since he last saw his mom.

He doesn’t notice it. He’s too busy noticing Glass’s sharp grin and bright eyes. He doesn’t feel the way his fingertips feel warm and staticky, as if he’s holding a hot mug. He doesn’t notice it until it’s gone, whipped away as Rex leaves the room. He presses his fingers to his lips and feels the tingle there, too, before it’s also gone.

He figures it out, then. And the loss feels all too similar and yet different. He’s never met anyone else like him until now. He’s never met anyone like Benten until now. And Peter Nureyev, that was his parting gift, is like him. He makes people’s skin tingle and he can manipulate the warmth in the air and, Juno hopes- god does Juno hope- he can hold celestials in his hands.

(It’s a myth, his powers. From Earth, so long ago. No one else knows it. He learned about his heritage from his mom, before she actually found out. When she thought she still had hers, before she realized they passed down onto you child with no hope of returning unless you commit the unthinkable.)

(But then she saw Juno excitedly summon a moon, in the palm of his hands, at just five years old, and the look she had given him chilled him to the core.)

(She didn’t find out about Ben. He made sure. Ben liked to put his stars in his hair and illuminate their bedroom ceiling before they slept. Juno hated himself for making him hide away the way his eyes twinkled in the starlight, but he couldn’t have her look at Ben like that too.)

(It didn’t matter. Sarah Steel killed Benzaiten Steel because she thought he was Juno. And Sarah Steel had stars fizzling from her fingers when she died, alone, in her prison cell.)

(Juno found out she died when he gasped awake and looked in the mirror only to find stars in his eyes.)

He doesn’t think about Nureyev after he leaves. He positively does not think about his lips on Juno’s or the way he smiled sharply as Juno spelled out his entire plan in front of him. He does not think about warmth seeping into his skin or the sudden bursts of energy he got when he thought he was at his limit. He does not think of a warm bed, a quiet night, the concept of long fingers pressing into his hips hard enough to burn.

Except he does. He thinks of all these things and then some and it takes weeks before he can stop taking cold showers every night when he lays down and breathes in that goddamn cologne.

He doesn’t see him again for months. Not until he walks into his apartment and there’s a warmth in the air that’s uncharacteristic for Hyperion City. Until he feels the resonation in his bones, feeling him there before he sees him.

Juno and Nureyev dance around each other through the entire job and it’s normal. They both don’t bring up the fact that their skin tingles when they touch, or the deep vibration that comes when they meet someone like them, or the way Nureyev melted one of his bracelets in that bathroom when Juno had disregarded his name.

It isn’t until they’re together, in a small cell, Juno with blood flecked around his eye and Nureyev with electrical burns on his chest, do they talk about it.

“I haven’t seen you do it,” Juno says, quietly. Nureyev makes an inquisitive sound, too tired and in pain to say much more. “Y’know. Make one.”

“Oh,” He speaks up, now. “Would… would you like to?” Juno doesn’t answer. He knows it’s personal, it’s intimate. Nureyev takes his silence as an answer, perhaps the one he wanted to hear. “Very well.”

He sits up, adjusts his glasses, and holds out his hands with the palms up. He hums quietly as his hands glow, a soft orange, the gentle scent of burning ozone, and a small sun grows. It grows until Juno can feel it’s heat and see the swirls of fire and gas and he exhales heavily.

“It’s-“ Juno clears his throat. “It’s beautiful.”

“I do try,” He smiles and pulls it closer to him, sighing, before pressing his palms together and sizzling it out with a small trail of smoke. Juno wishes it was back. It made him feel cozy in a way he hasn’t felt in a long time.

“Thanks,” He says. “For showing me.”

“Of course, Juno.”

Juno doesn’t say anything more for a long time. He assumes that Nureyev will go to sleep because he knows it’s night outside, he feels it in the deepest part of his gut, and his chest is buzzing with energy. Nureyev looks like he’s about to pass out.

He doesn’t. He studies Juno with his bright eyes and a soft frown.

“Juno,” Is all he gets out before the henchgoons are bursting in and dragging them out again.

Something terrible happens. There’s a bomb, a monster, and an impossible idiot.

He survives. His eye doesn’t. Nureyev kisses him sweetly and wipes his thumb across his cheekbone, leaving a quickly-cooling trail behind. They fall into bed together.

Peter Nureyev makes his bones warm. Juno knows he runs colder than most, he knows this because he knows it’s definitely not normal. When people touch his skin they flinch, lovers shiver as they hold him, he can make people gasp with a simple swipe of his tongue. When he sees Nureyev, he wants to reach out and seep the warmth from his skin. He feels like a hot engine, a fire under his skin. A blaze of glorious and beautiful fire.

He does exactly this. They’re a matched set, it feels like. Nureyev moves just right and makes Juno gasp and whine. He meets his eyes in the quiet dark and sees them filled with molten gold. They illuminate Juno’s face and he looks deep, deep into them. He can’t look away. He’s looking at him like it was he who hung the moons and stars in the sky. Like he was the celestial.

This is the reason why Juno leaves quietly, in the night. The way Nureyev looks at him… he can’t be that. He can’t be that for him. It’s best he let him down now, before he gets too attached to the idea that Juno is any kind of good. The Juno deserves to be looked at like that.

He doesn’t see him for a very long time. He gets an eye and gets a friend, loses a friend and loses an eye. He almost kills a friend. He almost kills himself. He loses his dignity but gets some much needed perspective.

Jet drives him and Rita into the desert. He coughs up dust and looks up and sees him and it’s like all the warmth in the world has seeped into him. He gasps and Nureyev— Anais Lim, here— grins and says something he doesn’t even hear and Juno wants to kiss him more than anything else in the world.

He gets the chance to, eventually. When it’s all laid out on the table and they whisper apologies into each others skin in the smaller corners of the spaceship. When Juno looks into his eyes and sees the gold and grins. He knows his eye is doing it to, it happens when he feels too intensely sometimes. He knows they’re a milky silver with twinkling lights hidden inside and he doesn’t care. He kisses Nureyev. And they fall into bed together, but not like that.

Juno presses to him so close that Nureyev makes a joke about him trying to burrow into his skin. Juno mumbles something about wanting to be warm and he smiles so tenderly at him. They hold each other, skin to skin, and Nureyev relaxes with a soft sigh.

“I missed this,” He admits. “Honestly. Your coolness is positively refreshing.”

“Yeah?” Juno drawls, looking up at him.

“Yes. It’s tiring being so hot all the time.” He winks and Juno shoves at him and he’s laughing.

“You make me warm.” Juno tells him. “In a way I haven’t… I haven’t felt in years.”

“How do you mean?”

Juno sucks in a breath. Time to be healthy and communicate.

So he tells Nureyev about Benzaiten. How he had the stars and Juno had the moon and Sarah resented it. How he was killed, how Sarah died, how the stars found their way into his fingertips. He’s sniffling and gasping by the end of it and Nureyev is still there. He’s not horrified, he’s not disgusted.

“I haven’t used my magic since… since then.” He admits. “I want to. I miss it but… I’m terrified. It’s stupid.”

“It’s not stupid,” Nureyev insists. “You’ve been through a lot, Juno. It’s only natural.”

Juno processes this. He supposes it is.

“I want to,” He repeats, sitting up. “I really want to.”

Nureyev follows his movements. He studies him carefully. “If you’re sure, my dear.”

Juno swallows thickly and nods.

He holds up his hand and concentrates, pulling and pulling until his hand grows colder and colder and a small, bright blue moon begins to grow and grown. It stops, the size of a tennis ball, and Juno breathes shakily.

“Juno…” Nureyev murmurs, watching intently. “It’s beautiful,”

“I do try,” He copies with a small grin. It… it is beautiful. The soft glow illuminates the dim room, casting a light across their skin.

And Juno doesn’t think before moving his other hand up and making a motion as it plucking something from the air and suddenly, suddenly he has stars on his fingertips. His throat closes up and he gasps and— he’s in Oldtown, he’s home— he’s blocking his face as his mother screams accusations of theft, you took it from me, give it back— he’s telling Ben to cut it out, she’ll see them, take them down— and then he’s beating down a bathroom door— screaming for Benzaiten—

“Juno!”

He starts with a flinch, blinking rapidly as his eye finds Nureyev. He’s concerned. Juno is shaking.

“Are you alright?” He asks him, calmly.

Juno looks down. His hands are empty.

“No,” He admits. “I’m… I’m really not.”

And that’s okay, he thinks as he falls asleep in Nureyev’s arms, his shaking subsided but not the memories. He’s not fine not in the slightest and it’s okay.

He feels a gentle tingle, like peppermint lip balm, except warm and nice and cozy and he thinks that maybe he will be, one day.


End file.
